for fourteen days the snow lies cold
where it fell
the air sinks and spreads its chill and
I am not afraid
of the voices that keep escaping from this
porous sediment:
testaments and resolutions, too-late
prophecies and
promises of restitutions: and I am both
cold and not-cold,
skin flushed, sweating, pulse erratic
fears abstracted
mind limping, racing into the lingering pall
of broken oaths
arrears and gall and fortis, fortis, fortioris,
eyes down, mind
drawn like a curtain, conscious only of my skin,
hot and prickling,
pinned to my muscles with thin needles, lancets
subdivided scalpels
sore and strained white-hot and autoclaved
and if I watch
more closely, listen to the clear and frosted
wind, I hope to
quickly notice when the world will cease this fatalistic
spin but really I
am holding myself together with cold reason and
cold hunger.
so it is, and as it is my day goes on a little longer.
